Users of fuels such as gasoline and diesel (in commercial applications) and JP-8, F-76 and other similar fuels (in military applications) have benefited from the existence of an extensive and well-established infrastructure for their shipping, delivery to end users, and use. The presence of this infrastructure has also enabled technology development of liquid fuel-based systems for uses ranging from automobiles to military aircraft. Within areas well-served by this infrastructure, dependence upon such liquid fuel-based systems is largely unquestioned.
In some applications, however, continued dependence on the availability of such liquid fuel products is unwise. Such applications include industrial or commercial applications in primitive regions and military operations in remote locations away from standard supply systems and sources. In applications such as military logistics supporting extended naval missions, assuring the availability of a steady and sufficient supply of liquid fuel products may become critically important and very difficult. While all-electric-powered ships and aircraft are planned, moves toward these platforms are slow and their completion is still only foreseen in the somewhat distant future. It is anticipated that a transition away from liquid fuels will be simpler and more rapidly adopted in larger apparatus such as aircraft carriers via the use of on-board nuclear power plants than in smaller equipment such as aircraft.
As a result, it is anticipated that reliance upon liquid fuel-based systems will continue well into the foreseeable future. It would thus be beneficial to provide new methods and systems for generating liquid fuels using electricity and commonly-available resources that could be employed on-location to reduce the criticality of long supply chains. The availability of such a process based on plentiful electricity and common resources could speed conversion to all-electric power sources in some simpler applications while retaining support for others in which electric power-based systems are either difficult or impractical.
Such methods and systems are provided herein.